Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Vouchers vs Credits For School Choice

    I enjoyed reading Scott’s thoughts on Funding School Choice. (The series that lead to his post can be found at the National Review Online – parts 1, 2, 3, 4) I am wondering if we have much to gain right now by discussing a new funding option for school choice. I would like to have…

  • Near-Sighted Legislation

    The senate is scheduled to vote today on whether to debate the bill to make two new seats in the House of Representatives and give them to give Utah and D.C. My opinion on this can be found in an editorial at National Review Online (no, I didn’t write it, but it expresses the same…

  • Bowling for Primaries

    I have been thinking about the comments by Bradley when I wrote about the primary election power struggle between the states and the parties. Last night the thought occurred to me that the parties could simply pick a new way of awarding delegates. They could set three dates on the primary calendar. Whatever states held…

  • New Attorney General

    I guess this means that I should abandon that thin sliver of hope that some post-hypnotic suggestion would cause Bush to name Senator Hatch as the new Attorney General and give us an easy way to put him out to pasture.

  • Prosecuting Religious Beliefs

    On Friday I saw the news from the first day of the Warren Jeffs trial. Connected to the particular story that I read was audio of Jeffs teaching youth classes in his polygamous community. I was curious to hear the words and voice of a man as twisted as Jeffs has been portrayed in the…

  • Libertarianism

    Early in my political study I flirted with the ideas of libertarianism. I was highly disenchanted with the Republicans and skeptical of the chances that the Democrats could right their party which, at the time, lacked a specific direction. I had taken the worlds smallest political quiz and though my score varied at times I…

  • No to Newt

    Over at Oval Office there is a discussion about the implications of a potential presidential run for Newt Gingrich. I have to agree with the assessment that: My take on the idea of Gingrich getting into the race at this point is that he would split the party’s votes further than it is already. .…

  • Our Crisis in Foreign Policy

    Frank does a good job discussing One Lesson From Two September 11th Events. He is completely right to ask: What will it take for America to learn a similar lesson–that if we expect to be respected and not feared, that we must give respect? Why does America think it is better than the rest of…

  • Half of the Story

    In explaining why Utah politics has become totally dominated by the Republicans the Deseret Spectacle only covered one half of the story. He covers the back room machinery of the Religious Right. It would be foolish to argue that this didn’t happen, or even that it was unrelated to our current unfortunate predicament. There is…

  • A New Generation?

    I had not planned to write anything particularly focused on the anniversary of 9/11. Certainly I am not surprised by the number of people who are writing about that. When I read The September 11 Generation Doesn’t Forget it got me wondering how much of the attitudes in that article were real and how much…

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